I was turned down for a job today. On one hand, I wasn't thrilled with the position. It would been the right title and a relatively good salary, but the job was a very loose definition of what I do. It was much more of a support position, which isn't my specialty. On the other hand, it was a job and one I could have done with not a lot of stress. So, it's still a bummer.
Still, I'm better today. I think what's bothering me at night, is when I sit down to check email, look at blogs, etc., I have no one to talk to. I can't pick up the phone and call my nearest and dearest because they're all asleep back east. We're definitely past the phase of weeknights, and I don't think anyone would appreciate me bringing back that trend.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Night
It's amazing how suburban we're quickly becoming. Saturday morning was yoga, followed by a nap, and then the rest of the weekend was a whirlwind of Target, Ikea, and various other shopping outlets. It's gotten so out of hand, we bought a little grill and even drilled a few holes in the wall to anchor the bookcases. What's become of us?
The state of the apartment these days sort of mirrors my state of mind. Some things are in order and in their place, but most everything else is out of whack, balanced on top of itself, being held together with dusty packing tape that's almost lost it's stick. I don't want to lose my stick, but I'm afraid. I haven't really slept well, staying up far too late, hoping exhaustion beats anxiety to the finish line. The longer I wait to go to bed, letting the tv fill the silence, the less time I'll spent lying awake, staring into the darkness, thinking. I'm bored. I'm getting lazy. I have no job. I'm at loose ends, with nothing to do. I have no purpose. And I'm lonely.
Poor J has to bear the brunt of it. He comes home after working all day, and has to hear about all the nothing I've done to pass the hours. I'm dragging my feet on doing things that need to be done, like dropping off a prescription or making a phone call, because once I do them, they're done, and I'll be left with nothing all over again. He does his best to keep me up, letting me call the shots with regards to our free time, but I don't want him to feel like he needs to babysit or constantly entertain me. I know I'll feel better once I get a job, which is a whole other worry in and of itself. There are more opportunities here, but a much, much larger talent pool, making the competition stiff. I thought I was getting a stronger response, but it's been quiet lately, and that makes me uneasy. When this happened in New York, I had a fallback. Here, I'm working without a net.
When you're sick, it's known as sundowning - you feel okay during the day but as the sun goes down, things start to feel worse. I actually feel okay throughout the day. I don't hate living here. Of course I miss home, but when it's light out, it's easy to see this adventure for what it is. It's when it gets dark and J has gone to be and it's just me, that's when I start to feel really alone. I try to remind myself at night that it's not so bad, but it's hard. I just keep wondering when we can put it all back in the boxes and go home.
The state of the apartment these days sort of mirrors my state of mind. Some things are in order and in their place, but most everything else is out of whack, balanced on top of itself, being held together with dusty packing tape that's almost lost it's stick. I don't want to lose my stick, but I'm afraid. I haven't really slept well, staying up far too late, hoping exhaustion beats anxiety to the finish line. The longer I wait to go to bed, letting the tv fill the silence, the less time I'll spent lying awake, staring into the darkness, thinking. I'm bored. I'm getting lazy. I have no job. I'm at loose ends, with nothing to do. I have no purpose. And I'm lonely.
Poor J has to bear the brunt of it. He comes home after working all day, and has to hear about all the nothing I've done to pass the hours. I'm dragging my feet on doing things that need to be done, like dropping off a prescription or making a phone call, because once I do them, they're done, and I'll be left with nothing all over again. He does his best to keep me up, letting me call the shots with regards to our free time, but I don't want him to feel like he needs to babysit or constantly entertain me. I know I'll feel better once I get a job, which is a whole other worry in and of itself. There are more opportunities here, but a much, much larger talent pool, making the competition stiff. I thought I was getting a stronger response, but it's been quiet lately, and that makes me uneasy. When this happened in New York, I had a fallback. Here, I'm working without a net.
When you're sick, it's known as sundowning - you feel okay during the day but as the sun goes down, things start to feel worse. I actually feel okay throughout the day. I don't hate living here. Of course I miss home, but when it's light out, it's easy to see this adventure for what it is. It's when it gets dark and J has gone to be and it's just me, that's when I start to feel really alone. I try to remind myself at night that it's not so bad, but it's hard. I just keep wondering when we can put it all back in the boxes and go home.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Moving in
We've been here 10 days and are settling in. It remains to be seen just how well, but for now, things are okay. We've been unpacking, albeit slowly. We did get the cable and internet hooked up. Couple that with the super comfy new couch and it's easy to see why unpacking isn't moving right along.
It's interesting here. We're about 35 miles outside of LA, and while I loved living in the middle of it all in New York, I think I'd really not enjoying living in the city here. It's so different from what we know, that I'm finding the suburbs to be okay. The biggest change so far is the driving. I like to drive and being from New Jersey, I'm damn good at it, but I miss the subway like crazy. Even on it's worst days, you got where you wanted to go in less than an hour for the low, low price of two bucks. Here, it's a crapshoot. It took me over three hours to get to LA on Wednesday, 90 of those minutes spent sitting on the approach to the freeway. Two overturned tractor trailer within 10 miles of each other snarled traffic up but good:
That's eight lanes of cars all trying to merge onto a road that had no intention of moving. Whereas Thursday was smooth sailing. Weird.
On the other hand, where traffic comes along with driving, it's a handy accessory, like a backpack on wheels. I can get whatever we need/want from the store instead of only what I can carry. And when I say store, I mean Target. There's one in every direction which is awesome for keeping us in discount toilet paper, but awful for keeping us in snacks, dvds, shoes, and all the other fun stuff they have. Must...resist...
In other news, after working (yes!) for two days this week with some old friends, I got my first sunburn of the season. I coated myself in so much sunscreen had I tripped and fallen (which is always entirely possible), I would have slid 15 feet into traffic. To be safe, I tethered myself to the building with leftover hot dogs. Waste not, want not.
It's interesting here. We're about 35 miles outside of LA, and while I loved living in the middle of it all in New York, I think I'd really not enjoying living in the city here. It's so different from what we know, that I'm finding the suburbs to be okay. The biggest change so far is the driving. I like to drive and being from New Jersey, I'm damn good at it, but I miss the subway like crazy. Even on it's worst days, you got where you wanted to go in less than an hour for the low, low price of two bucks. Here, it's a crapshoot. It took me over three hours to get to LA on Wednesday, 90 of those minutes spent sitting on the approach to the freeway. Two overturned tractor trailer within 10 miles of each other snarled traffic up but good:
That's eight lanes of cars all trying to merge onto a road that had no intention of moving. Whereas Thursday was smooth sailing. Weird.
On the other hand, where traffic comes along with driving, it's a handy accessory, like a backpack on wheels. I can get whatever we need/want from the store instead of only what I can carry. And when I say store, I mean Target. There's one in every direction which is awesome for keeping us in discount toilet paper, but awful for keeping us in snacks, dvds, shoes, and all the other fun stuff they have. Must...resist...
In other news, after working (yes!) for two days this week with some old friends, I got my first sunburn of the season. I coated myself in so much sunscreen had I tripped and fallen (which is always entirely possible), I would have slid 15 feet into traffic. To be safe, I tethered myself to the building with leftover hot dogs. Waste not, want not.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
The Amazing Race
For all of you that know me and what happens when I go to the airport:
Our flight from Newark to Phoenix was relatively uneventful. 30 minutes in, the man behind me starting yelling for the air marshals because the women behind him kicked his seat. Twice. Threats of lawsuits went back and forth, with him demanding we land and get the cops involved. Needless to say, we had better things to do than sit in Pittsburgh over a playground argument and we made it to Phoenix, with him complaining the whole way.
Here's where it gets interesting: we landed at 7:15 in Terminal C, with 64 minutes to catch our connection to Ontario (CA) in Terminal...4 (I don't know either) With no signs to guide us, we tracked down a security guard who pointed us in the direction of a shuttle bus. We got on the bus at 7:30 and after a 10 minute ride, arrived at Terminal 4. After a series of wrong turns and some elevator rides, we found ourselves at the back of a 20+ person line for security, with 14 minutes to make our flight.
(As an aside, this bitchy woman in front of me tried to one-up me in her knowledge of NJ. She was from Philly, so I think you all know how that ended.)
J and I took turns taking off our shoes, getting out our laptops, etc, so we'd be ready when we got to the scanner. As we got closer, we could see the TSA agents taking their fine, sweetass time checking tickets, looking at IDs, asking about flights. When we finally got to the front, the agent insisted on flipping through my passport, looking at both sides of J's license, examining our old tickets from Newark, all the while commenting on how soon our flight was and how far the gate was from security.
We finally got through and me with a huge backpack and J with 2 bags, start running through the terminal. OF COURSE the moving walkways were broken, and we were gate 28, all the way at the end. The terminal was nothing but kids, old people, nuns, dogs, and I think at one point, we had to stop and let a family of ducks go by at gate 15.
We arrived at the gate at 7:59. We boarded...and were promptly delayed 30 minutes for equipment problems. We finally took off at 9pm.
This is all a roundabout way of saying we're now safely in California.
Our flight from Newark to Phoenix was relatively uneventful. 30 minutes in, the man behind me starting yelling for the air marshals because the women behind him kicked his seat. Twice. Threats of lawsuits went back and forth, with him demanding we land and get the cops involved. Needless to say, we had better things to do than sit in Pittsburgh over a playground argument and we made it to Phoenix, with him complaining the whole way.
Here's where it gets interesting: we landed at 7:15 in Terminal C, with 64 minutes to catch our connection to Ontario (CA) in Terminal...4 (I don't know either) With no signs to guide us, we tracked down a security guard who pointed us in the direction of a shuttle bus. We got on the bus at 7:30 and after a 10 minute ride, arrived at Terminal 4. After a series of wrong turns and some elevator rides, we found ourselves at the back of a 20+ person line for security, with 14 minutes to make our flight.
(As an aside, this bitchy woman in front of me tried to one-up me in her knowledge of NJ. She was from Philly, so I think you all know how that ended.)
J and I took turns taking off our shoes, getting out our laptops, etc, so we'd be ready when we got to the scanner. As we got closer, we could see the TSA agents taking their fine, sweetass time checking tickets, looking at IDs, asking about flights. When we finally got to the front, the agent insisted on flipping through my passport, looking at both sides of J's license, examining our old tickets from Newark, all the while commenting on how soon our flight was and how far the gate was from security.
We finally got through and me with a huge backpack and J with 2 bags, start running through the terminal. OF COURSE the moving walkways were broken, and we were gate 28, all the way at the end. The terminal was nothing but kids, old people, nuns, dogs, and I think at one point, we had to stop and let a family of ducks go by at gate 15.
We arrived at the gate at 7:59. We boarded...and were promptly delayed 30 minutes for equipment problems. We finally took off at 9pm.
This is all a roundabout way of saying we're now safely in California.
Where am I?
I don't know how it happened, but apparently, I now live in California. It's a temporary exile, but I hope New York is okay without us.
I don't know how okay I am without New York.
I don't know how okay I am without New York.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)